in a prosperous train, when an event was announced to him, which completed
his own ruin and gave a fatal turn to the Spanish policy and conduct in
America. This was the arrival of Francis de Bovadilla, with a commission
to supersede Columbus in his government, to arraign him as a criminal, and
pronounce judgment on all his former administration.

It seems that by this time the enemies of Columbus, despairing to complete
his overthrow by groundless insinuations of malconduct, had taken the more
effectual method of exciting the jealousy of their sovereigns. From the
promising samples of gold and other valuable commodities brought from
America, they took occasion to represent to the king and queen that the
prodigious wealth and extent of the countries he had discovered would soon
throw such power into the hands of the viceroy, that he would trample on
the royal authority and bid defiance to the Spanish power. These arguments
were well calculated for the cold and suspicious temper of Ferdinand; and
they must have had some effect upon the mind of Isabella. The consequence
was the appointment of Bovadilla, the inveterate enemy of Columbus, to take
the government from his hands. This first tyrant of the Spanish nation in
America began his administration by ordering Columbus to be put in chains
on board of a ship, and sending him prisoner to Spain. By relaxing all
discipline he introduced disorder and licentiousness thro the colony.
He subjected the unhappy natives to a most miserable servitude, and
apportioned them out in large numbers among his adherents. Under this
severe treatment perished in a short time many thousands of those innocent
people.

Columbus was carried in his fetters to the Spanish court, where the king
and queen either feigned or felt a sufficient regret at the conduct of
Bovadilla towards their illustrious prisoner. He was not only released from
confinement; he was treated with all imaginable respect. But, altho